(a) The Prior Art
There has been a long felt need in many product manufacturing and processing industries for fast and accurate means to measure and to package flowable products. By "flowable" is meant, in its broadest sense, any substance which can be metered and moved through conduit means under pressure. This need has been particularly felt in the food processing industry where the requirement for speed and accuracy is compounded by the necessity to meet standards of sanitation and product unit integrity regulated and supervised by such governmental agencies as the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Therefore, although not limited to food processing, the invention will be primarily discussed as applied in this environment because of the higher standards which must be met and the unique problems which are encountered in food processing applications.
One of the inadequacies of prior art machines for processing flowable products is the lack of means to repeatedly meter and dispense a unit product of the same weight and/or density from container to container. This problem is critical for several reasons. The ingredients of high quality food products are very expensive and random container over fill presents a serious problem of cost control. The problem is further complicated by the fact that both the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Federal Food and Drug Administration are charged with the responsibility of protecting the public against being short weighted. With users of inaccurate prior art machines, a partial solution is to deliberately over fill each container. However, this solution is not an unmixed blessing because the practice of over fill is not only costly but could be considered not only by the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration but also by various other governmental regulatory agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission, as an unfair method of competition.
Another problem of prior art food processing machines is their vulnerability to food contamination. These machines are difficult and time consuming to clean, particularly if adequate cleaning requires field stripping of many of the machine's component parts. Reassembling after cleaning is also time consuming with prior art machines, especially because of the tendency for disassembled parts to become misplaced or lost during the cleaning process.
Food processing machines are required to be cleaned between each product run of food and this may be several times a day. Cleaning methods include hosing down all machine parts with steam, hot water, caustic and/or acid solutions and/or combinations of any or all of these cleaning means. Exposure of prior art machines, equipped with electrical drives and controls, to these cleaning techniques has proved to be devastating. This is particularly so with respect to electronic controls which have an exceedingly low resistance to moisture.
Additionally, many prior art machines can only be taken apart and reassembled by highly trained personnel. These machines also require skilled electrical technicians to reprogram them before each new run.
Other problems of prior art food processing machines include their inability to synchronize the movement of their dispensing heads with the movement of the conveyorized containers; and failure to confine a charge of food to within its intended container without overlap and splatter on the edges of the containers, other containsers, the conveyor and the floor.
These and other deficiencies of prior art flowable product dispensing machines have been remedied by the subject invention.
(b) General Discussion of the Invention
This invention overcomes the faults of the above discussed prior art machines by providing a mechanism which is programmed, timed and operated entirely by fluid pressure means, thus rendering it impervious to the attrition of moisture. These machines, already in the field, are routinely cleaned several times a day without any history of down time because of moisture created malfunctions.
The frame, product storage reservoir, mounting plates and accessories are, wherever feasible, fabricated from stainless steel plates and stainless steel seamless tubing. Novel configuration of the product storage reservoir assures improved product flow into a transparent acrylic distribution manifold. Novel product metering and pumping means consistently convey accurately measured product units to one or more dispenser heads mounted for orbital movement over the path of conveyorized product containers. Novel means are provided to chain drive the dispenser heads in their orbital paths without commonly experienced chain binding and lock-up between sprockets. The accuracy of the dispenser orbital paths and novel dispensing means assures that the product will be deposited within its intended container, rather than on its edges, a following container, the conveyor or on the floor.
The sub-components of the machine are designed for ease of cleaning without removal from the main frame. The machine is also designed for ease of maintenance and the simplicity of its parts and fasteners enables it to be quickly and easily field stripped and reassembled by unskilled labor. Once assembled, the set up time for any product run is literally only a matter of seconds. Also, a product run machine set up can be performed by unskilled labor.
Finally, based on reports filed by U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors indicating that the commercial embodiment of the machine is constructed of acceptable materials, performs satisfactorily, and can be maintained in good sanitary condition, the machine has been approved for use in federally inspected meat and poultry plants.